Students and Cellphones, Together Forever?

For the first time in years, I had to confiscate a particular student's cellphone-- I've been trying to be diligent about getting the kids to put their phones in the caddy at the front of the room, but some of the kids smuggle them back to their seats, where they place them behind computers and book bags so that they can watch videos and do whatever teenagers do on their phones all-the-fucking-live-long-day-- or the screen addicted give popular rationales such as they need to charge the phone or text their mom or get a particular photo for a project that can only be accessed on their phone and then the next thing you know, they're on Snapchat or TikTok-- it's an exhausting battle and I wish our school would ban the damned things, especially since there is definitive research that phones are making kids dumber AND even if you don't use your phone in class, if someone near you is using their phone, it ruins your concentration as well-- I liken it to smoking-- not only is it bad for you, but it's also bad for the people around you breathing in second-hand-smoke-- and I certainly feel this secondhand effect teaching-- because even though I'm vigilant about not using my own phone in front of the kids-- I really try to set a good example-- but once I suspect a kid is illicitly screwing around with their phone (which shouldn't be on their person to begin with) then I lose concentration-- anyway, it usually doesn't come down to having to confiscate the phone-- that only happens every few years, but when it does, the student (who always seems to be female) inevitably flips out, cries, and curses at me . . . which is why this is such a hard policy to enforce because teens have so much emotional attachment to their phone-- once they freak out I tell them I'm not trained to handle this kind of emotional breakdown and addiction and they need to head to guidance for some guidance-- for example, and the student who had her phone confiscated once showed me that she does 16-18 hours of screen time a day on her phone-- which doesn't even seem possible and definitely requires some kind of professional guidance-- anyway, I get the fact that some teachers give up and don't enforce any kind of cellphone policy, because they're burned out and scared to face these kind of consequences-- but I'm trying to fight the good fight and maybe someday we'll get an administration that has done some reading on this subject and will just outright ban the things-- because they don't belong in school.

Dave Knows His Audience

Yesterday, several players and I were sitting on the bench watching the last tennis match of the afternoon, and one of the players was lamenting the fact that his friend had drawn a little penis on his white Crocs, so I said: "I guess you need to remove the 'r' when you talk about those things" and-- after a long pause-- they all started laughing.

I'm Mister Snow Miser

My buddy Whitney responded to yesterday's sentence with an interesting question: "If you could get rid of either the wicked humid heat of summer or the fiercely bitter cold of winter, which would you pick?" and while I must admit that the older I get, the less I like the bitter cold, there is the fact that when it gets cold, you can always put on more clothes-- or buy a really nice jacket and pair of gloves-- but there is no escaping the humid heat . . . no matter how much back hair my wife removes, it doesn't matter, it's inescapably awful, claustrophobic and oppressive, demoralizing and debilitating, and it just sucks to be a sweaty mess . . . so while it's more of a decision victory than a knockout, I'm awarding the win to the bitter cold of winter.

Summer Is Coming

The jury is out about how much the human mind remembers pain, but I know for certain that every winter, I forget how much I hate the heat . . . until it rears its humid head again.

What Is It Like to Be a Dog?

On this very special episode of We Defy Augury, I interview my good friend and fledgling author Rob Russell . . .we discuss his new book "JoJo the Small Town Hound: Volume 1, Leesburg, Virginia and the Curious Case of the Dog Money" and although the book is for children aged 7-10, Rob and I get into some fairly deep topics: the subjectivity of consciousness; structural racism and systemic prejudice towards black Americans, human and canine; the principles of drama; and the fleeting nature of our mortality-- and by the end of the episode, we develop an idea for the greatest children’s book that will never be written . . . Special Guests: Rob Russell, Method Man, and George Costanza.

Slurry Time!

No time to waste writing sentences, because I've got to mix the moss I scraped off a concrete block at the park with some yogurt and beer to make a "slurry" and then paint it on our concrete planter-- apparently in six weeks, the moss will flourish . . . I promise to keep you posted (although this project might not be great for blogging material-- the only thing more boring than watching grass grow is watching moss propagate).

A Riddle Wrapped in an Enigma That is Broadcasting Tomorrow is "Tuesday" Vibes

This week was so long and busy that it has inverted itself into an endless loop, turning my Friday energy into overwhelming Monday Mobius strip bewilderment.

So Many Steps, So Many Racket Sports

Another successful GMC Tennis Tourney-- everyone advanced through the first round except Theo, who was exhausted from Passover fasting (that's what you get for properly worshipping the lord) and we also had some fun in between matches playing pickleball . . . and then when I got home I went down to the park and played some more pickleball and now-- 25,000 steps later-- I am very very tired.

The Pathetic Fallacy, Pregnancy Edition

Today at work the ladies organized a "sprinkle" for a teacher who is very pregnant with her second child (and leaving at the end of the week) and it took me a couple hours to comprehend the term for the party . . . you have a baby "shower" for the first kid and then for the next kid, it's not as big a deal, so you tone the weather down a bit . . . and I guess for a third kid, you just get a "mist" or a "fog."

Sometimes, You Need To Strap Them On

Sometimes, when you're a homeowner, you need to strap on the ol' aerating shoes and march around on your lawn to make tiny holes for clover seed-- because you're trying to transform your shitty crabgrass lawn into a beautiful dog-urine proof clover lawn . . . but then someone mentions "moss" and you're like: should I be thinking about moss? should I have a moss lawn? should I have moss-covered stones to prevent erosion in the corner of my yard by the bike shed? and then you go down to the park and grab some river stones so that you can start propagating moss, by mixing some of your existing moss in a blender with yogurt and then painting the rocks with this slurry . . . and then you're like: does any of this shit even matter? which is a pretty common homeowner question-- when you stare at decay in its ugly, futile, desiccated face and realize that the whole thing, your house, your roof, your lawn, your deck, your siding, your interior and exterior paint, your wood floors, your carpets, your cabinets, and your furniture . . . it's all falling apart and there's no way to maintain it-- and this isn't even considering the appliances and planned obsolescence-- but anyway, I'm trying to grow some clover in my yard.

 

Did Jesus Tell Off-Color Jokes With His Bros? Probably Not . . .

One of the primary and profound questions that the play Hamlet explores is the opening line: "Who's there?" and so in class today we were examining how Shakespeare illustrates Hamlet's behavior in Act I Scene ii in quick succession with his family, alone, and with his friends-- and in each situation, Hamlet exhibits different personality traits-- with his family, he is sarcastic, passive-aggressive, and resentful; alone he is depressed, world-weary, and disgusted by the corruption in the world and particularly in his mother; and when he sees his buddy Horatio he is cordial and warm and even makes a couple of jokes . . . so my students were describing their different personalities in different situations-- at work, as captain of the baseball team, in Calculus, etcetera-- and we agreed that it is often the situation that determines our behavior, not our personality-- we don't seize the moment, the moment seizes us . . . but I did acknowledge that there are a very select group of folks that behave the same in every situation-- but the only examples I could think of were Jesus, Buddha, and Godzilla.

Amazon . . . When You Need 5 Pounds of White Dutch Clover Seed NOW!

Like many environmentally conscious lawn owners, I am converting my lawn to clover . . . clover doesn't require much maintenance or water; clover doesn't need any chemicals to thrive; clover attracts pollinating insects; and clover is resistant to dog urine-- and I'm having success with the seeds that I planted last week, they are starting to sprout, but I need more seeds to spread on the rest of the lawn-- not just the parts Lola killed with her urine, so I ordered a five-pound bag yesterday from Amazon before I went to play pickleball and when I returned from pickleball, there was a five-pound bag of white clover sitting on my porch-- which strikes me as nuts . . . is there a guy driving around with bags of clover in his car, waiting for the call? and honestly, I actually didn't want the seeds that quickly-- if I wanted them NOW I would have gone to Home Depot, but I didn't really feel like seeding the lawn yesterday because my legs were tired and first before I spread the seeds, I was going to walk around with these special spiked shoe attachments I borrowed from Stacey and aerate the lawn-- I'll get a picture of these things once I strap them on and use them and I also bailed today-- we were out late last night (not drinking and not dancing . . . we were at a Pakistani wedding) and I realized that sometimes you don't want things shipped to you that quickly because then you've actually got to do the chore, like seeding the lawn or fixing the toilet, and you envisioned doing the chore in a few days, not RIGHT NOW . . . so be careful when you order from Amazon because you might not get the lag time you were looking for.

Strange Winds: A Meditation on Contamination

A long podcast episode deserves a long title-- and my newest episode of We Defy Augury is my longest episode yet-- so I have titled it "Strange Winds: A Meditation on Contamination" and it also has a long sub-title . . . "Examining Our Fears of Infection, Infiltration, and Impurity . . . Ideological and Otherwise" and this epic piece of audio is based on a strange coincidence-- I read four books in a row that deal-- directly and indirectly-- with our everchanging fears and anxieties about impurity and contamination . . . these are the books which my thoughts are (loosely) based on: Nelson DeMille's Cold War spy novel The Charm School; Dean R. Koontz's 90s tech thriller Dark Rivers of the Heart; Jonathan Blitzer's stellar book on the border situation-- Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis-- and Silvia Moreno-Garcia's horror novel Mexican Gothic . . . and there are also plenty of special guests: Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, Dave Chapelle, John Cougar, Phil Connors, Bob Dylan, The Scorpions, Kansas, Sting, Long Duk Dong, General Ripper, General Turgidson, President Merkin Muffley, John Mulaney, Donald Trump, Marco Guttierez, Ivan Drago, and Tommy DeVito . . . so if you have a long car ride or you're training for a marathon, then give it a shot-- despite the length, I think it's got a fairly coherent argument.

Minor Expectations (by Edmund Wells)

Lowering the bar makes you less likely to trip over it.

Pickleball Rule #1

If it's your wife, don't give any advice.

Dave Almost Gets to Be Smart

I recently learned (when reading The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World by Damon Krukowski) how noise-canceling headphones work . . . apparently they have microphones on the outside of the headphones that record the ambient noise around the headphone user-- then the headphones actively generate equal (but opposite) sound waves which reverse the polarity of the ambient noise . . . and I was excited to share this newfound knowledge with my Creative Writing class (after I told a girl to remove her giant noise-canceling headphones and enter reality) BUT I forgot something important-- so when I asked the class "Does anyone know how noise-canceling headphones actually work?" the majority of the class looked at me in bewilderment, aside from one girl, who raised her hand and reeled off the answer that I was so excited to tell the class . . . I had forgotten that the valedictorian is in my Creative Writing class-- she locked it up earlier in the year and so was slumming in an elective-- and becoming valedictorian of a giant high school like East Brunswick is no mean feat and it shows . . . she certainly took the wind out of my sails!

Dave's Calf Blooms Like a Spring Flower

This morning I made my triumphant return to 6:30 AM before school basketball-- we only had nine so we were playing full court four-on-four and my legs were NOT ready for this-- apparently PT and a bit of pickleball are not training for full court sprints with young people . . . but I survived, my calf felt good, and I even made a few shots (but missed far more than I made) and it was nice to get a work-out in before a long day of teaching Shakespeare and then riding in a van to Iselin to coach high school tennis.

The Gloves Will be Off

So exciting: my friend just published a children's book . . . even more exciting: in two days, I get to write a candid review of my friend's children's book!

Bring the Noise!

I just finished an excellent book on the financial, philosophical, and aesthetic implications of our collective move from analog audio to digital audio: The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World by Damon Krukowski-- the drummer of the spacey alt-rock band Galaxie 500-- but I found it quite ironic that I was reading the book on my new Kindle Scribe-- because the book begins like this . . .

THANK YOU FOR READING this analog book. It requires no additional hardware, uses no power, and is 100 percent recyclable. You will find that it is possible to read, or not read, any of this book’s pages in any sequence. While its pages have been numbered sequentially to assist in navigation, there is no reason to consult these numbers if you do not wish. Should you like to highlight a passage, you will find that you can mark the page with most any implement at hand— even a fingernail will do. The paper of this book is also soft enough to be folded, torn, or even shredded if that gives you satisfaction, without special tools. You are free to share this book, resell it, or donate it to charity.

Backpack Vacuum!

I love our new Hoover Shoulder Vac backpack vacuum so much that I made a little home for it in my study-- vacuuming is so much better when you're not pushing around a clunky machine and instead, the apparatus resides on your back, making you nimble and agile-- and has this thing got suction?-- fuck yes it does.